Spotify Celebrate 1st Anniversary In SA & Here Are What Local Audiences Have Been Streaming

It has been an exciting year since the much-anticipated launch of Spotify – the largest global music streaming service – into South Africa, which made browsing, discovering and sharing music easier than ever before for local music fans. Spotify received a hugely positive response from South Africa music fans on its launch, who were attracted by Spotify’s depth of catalogue, 3 billion playlists and its unique personalisation features, such as Discover Weekly and Daily Mix. And, upon its arrival into the market, Spotify became a very important strategic partner for South African artists and the local music industry. At its launch, South Africa joined 64 other countries already enjoying the Spotify experience, which over the last year has grown to an impressive 79 countries, including the Middle East and North Africa and India, offering a global community of over 200 million music fans, access to more than 40 million tracks and an extensive range of three billion+ local and international playlists.

Today, on its first birthday, Spotify can reveal that the most-streamed local artist by South African music fans since our launch is Nasty C. Black Coffee was the second most-streamed local artist in South Africa, closely followed by AKA at number three. Black Coffee’s ‘Drive’ (with David Guetta, featuring Delilah Montagu) – which has already amassed over 25 million worldwide streams on Spotify for the radio edit version – was the most streamed local track by South Africans since launch, followed by ‘Collide’ from Lady Zamar with ‘Fela In Versace from AKA in third spot.

Spotify can also reveal that, based on the number of streams in major cities since launch, Johannesburg was the most musical city in South Africa. Spotify also found that Friday 22nd February 2019 was the most musical day of the last 12 months, when Spotify saw the most streams by South African music fans.

Pop continues to claim prominence as the top streamed genre on local listeners’ playlists. However local hip hop has also had a huge year on Spotify, with the likes of Nasty C and AKA making it onto Spotify’s top lists and playlists throughout the year, which could be attributed to fans wanting to get their hands on the much-anticipated albums Strings and Bling and Touch My Blood, respectively from each artist.

Claudius Boller, Spotify’s Managing Director for the Middle East and Africa, said: “Our first year in South Africa has been extremely exciting and we have been thrilled by the response from music fans. Our launch in South Africa – our first African market – gave us the opportunity to offer local music fans access to a world of new music and genres, as well as giving local artists the opportunity to connect with a global audience of music fans on Spotify.”

The top 10 local artists most streamed by South African audiences since launch in March 2018

Nasty C

Black Coffee

AKA

Snotkop

GoldFish

Mlindo The Vocalist

Jeremy Loops

Fokofpolisiekar

Sjava

Prince Kaybee

The top 10 local tracks most streamed by South African audiences since launch in March 2018